


Seven Silver Suns

by terriku



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Spoilers, multiple echo-blessed / one warrior of light, spoilers to most recent patch, takes place between 3.4 and 4.0/4.1 but makes reference to things we find out in recent patches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terriku/pseuds/terriku
Summary: They've been on the run since the assassination of Nanamo Ul Namo, through snow and steel, straight through to the fumbling end of the Dragonsong War.  Now, in the quiet that peace has carved out, Ishgard and the Scions stand still and assess the damage.A nation rebuilds. Batai reflects.





	Seven Silver Suns

**Author's Note:**

> self-indulgent, out of order, vaguely connected one-shots.
> 
> also, i stole some of my friends' ffxiv characters. sorry & thanks for the sacrifice.

The black corpse of Nidhogg takes up half the bridge. Coils upon coils of rancid dragonflesh lie upon broken stone and shattered towers. Empty. Unmoving. The vessels of the wrym’s power have been cast down where no man could ever hope to venture.

 

Nidhogg is dead, his hoard is scattered, his eyes are gone.

 

Batai stands and stares up into the sky. Hraesvelgr rises, injured but alive, and Estinien’s body is half draped across Alphinaud’s shaking shoulders. They all move towards Ishgard’s spires and as they do, the clouds part and bright rays of sun shine upon their retreating backs. The sunbeams strike the Warrior of Light and his compatriots almost as if Hydaelyn herself were acknowledging their victory. Around them, the silence breaks as the reality of Nidhogg’s death settles over Ishgard.

 

In the din of shouting and cheers and victory and relief, Batai hears only her last parting words echoing through his head, in the wind, in the stone itself. A passing knight clasps his shoulder. He feels only her absence at his side, the numbness of an empty hand, the pommel of his staff worn smooth and cold to the touch.  

 

Once, he would have been crushed beneath Ifrit’s claws without her protection. Had it not been her outstretched hand, gauntleted, metal-cold, that kept him from falling to his death in Titan’s realm? Would the memory of her, drenched in salt water, hair sticking to her face and the nape of her neck, standing on a hacked-together-craft upon a calming sea ever leave him? In all his battles, he stood behind her, besides her, with her. Now, here is he alone, slayer of the dread Nidhogg. Half of him wonders what she'd say if she could see him here. Praise? Acknowledgment? Wonder?

 

The other half of him knows that the Ileane that had turned and left after slaughtering Thordan and his followers, who had spat her parting words at him, who mourned and hated and accepted in the same breath, would have no words for him at all. That Ileane is gone; somewhere beyond the horizon, where the snows of Coerthas and the hands of the Scions can no longer reach her.

 

 “Batai,” Alphinaud calls over his shoulder, “let’s go home.”

 

For half a moment Batai thinks of a sea of grass in a summer wind, a river deep and blue, a pair of eyes as pale as sun-lit heliodor, then he realizes that Alphinaud means the Fortemps manor that has been their sanctuary for the past year. Ishgard is the farthest thing from his home, but in that moment Batai truly misses the bed allotted to him. He misses the warm hearth his friends have shared for the past moons. He stares into the sky for only a moment longer before jogging forward and lifting Estinien’s arm across his shoulders and off of Alphinaud. The dragoon is light despite the blood-dyed armor that he still wears. Unconscious and unmoving, but unlike Nidhogg, fully alive. From the corner of his eyes, Batai sees a streak of silver stream towards them. Shiera, face set with a grimace that could fell mountains, reaches out with her magic before she even reaches Estinien. Her aether wraps around him like warm fire as it reaches out and embraces the unconscious man. It goes against everything they were taught as healers but Batai does not say this. Shiera has already seen one dear person pass in her arms, he cannot blame her for recklessness in saving another.

 

“Enough,” Alphinaud says still young and heart-weary, “you will collapse if you exert yourself anymore.” The young man looks to Batai as if to prompt him. The color is draining fast from her face, and for this reason only, Batai acquiesces. The last thing he needs is for another friend to collapse. Collapsing ought to be reserved for stones, not mortals.

 

He raises a hand to her chest to stop her. “Shiera we cannot do any more for him.”

 

For half a moment, fire flashes through her eyes. Shiera almost juts out her chin defiantly, before her shoulders slump forward, half out of fatigue and half out of defeat. “I know,” she says in a quiet voice. She too, knows, the limits of healing – how sometimes flesh refuses to knit back together and the burning wound left by a lance of aether was beyond their powers to close. Batai recalls this with a wince and regret and the deep lingering pain failure brought with it. He knows Shiera is thinking the same thing for she has thought of little else in the days that followed their trip into the Vault. Alphinaud too is dragged into their collective reverie. He suspects that Estinien alone is unplagued by this, but then, perhaps Estinien is plagued by other ill thoughts.

 

They pass under a gate and find Aymeric waiting with a chirurgeon and two Temple Knights bearing a make-shift litter. The look on his face is grim too. Aymeric had already resolved himself to slaying a friend. Does he feel relieved now to retrieve his prone and broken body? Batai suspects not. But Aymeric is a steadfast man and he nods tersely before following the litter to the Congregation.

 

“He will be fine,” Batai says, more to calm Alphinaud who looks like he might jump out of his skin at any moment now. After the ever-present fog that clings to the Foundaint swallows them, Batai herds his tired friends upwards. They pass under gates and up endless stairs with nary a sound. What is there left to say? In the echoing wind, Batai thinks he hears the clink of her chainmail, of the sound her boots made against Ishgard’s cold stone. But it is only a passing fancy formed half from blood loss and half from longing.

 

At the door of the manor, a small collection of House Fortemps Knights and the house staff are waiting for their return. They rush forward to help Alphinaud and Shiera indoors where stoked fires and thick blankets and hot tea are surely waiting. The steward looks at Batai, but Batai shakes his head. He’s surprised to find that he is not quite so ready to sink into the comforts of company.

 

Instead, he walks down the wide avenue that runs straight down the Pillars and comes to a stop only where the road ends. From here, he can see all of Ishgard. Behind him, the Vault looms like an imposing shadow. But the sun has once again retreated behind grey clouds, and the winds of Coerthas rise bringing with it snow and fog.

 

When he looks down, he can see the lights in the Brume flickering with the wind.

 

If he looks out, he can see the Coerthas Highlands spread out in front of him.

 

If he looks up, he can see snow falling slowly.

 

If he looks back, there is no one behind him.

 

There is no familiar form standing against a pillar, waiting for his moment of quiet to end. There is no clink of metal against stone, of chainmail or leather or plate armor, no soft hair blowing in the wind. There is no flash of bright heliodor, no sharp steady gaze as pale as sunlight, only – only Ishgard’s blue banner which flutters proudly in the wind.

 

Batai is alone.


End file.
